My Life in and out of the Rough

by John Daly

  Last summer, I called Dee Fisher and introduced myself. Dee was shocked, and almost speechless. It was pretty emotional. I told her I’d like to meet her and the girls if they wanted to meet me. We settled on the day after the PGA Championship. I was going to fly that Monday to Fuzzy’s annual fund-raiser in Sellersburg, Indiana, not far from Indianapolis. Steve and Dee said they would be there, and they were going to bring Emily and Karen.

  So, after 14 years, we finally got together. I was putting together an episode of The Daly Planet, my reality show that premiered on the Golf Channel this year, and a camera crew was in town. But I didn’t want to force anything on Emily and Karen, so our first meeting was private. They gave me a big hug and thanked me over and over. They showed me their scrapbooks, which included their diplomas and the first pictures I’d ever seen of their dad.

  A couple of golf magazines had published stories about the girls and me getting in touch, so it wasn’t a secret or anything anymore. After we talked a bit, I asked them if they would mind being guests on one of my first shows. They said, sure. So I brought in the camera crew to tape me, Steve, Dee, Emily, and Karen talking. Then Emily and Karen said they wanted to read a letter they had written to me.

  Here it is:

  Dear John,

  It is hard to find the words to thank you for the selfless gift you gave to us. We lost a wonderful man, our dad, that day but you stepped up to the plate, big time. When your unexpected gift was received, it was above and beyond what we could have imagined or dreamed.

  We now, looking back, have a much greater appreciation for what you had to sacrifice to help ensure our future. We hope that you are proud of our accomplishments—we gave school 100 percent and along the way learned to live, laugh and love.

  Please know that we will always have a special place in our hearts and we will always be eternally grateful.

  Thank you and may God bless you like he has us!

  Emily and Karen.

  I’m not much for crying, but when Emily read that to me…wow!

  In their letter, Emily and Karen asked God to bless me, but I told them He already had. He put me at Crooked Stick for a reason, and it wasn’t just to win a golf tournament.

  My gift to them was from the heart. It just came out.

  I think it came from the Lord.

  And I think it came from my mother, the way she raised me, and the way she always treated people.

  The gift I gave them 14 years earlier could never come close to replacing their father, of course, but it did provide them the college education that he would have given them if he’d had the chance. And I’ve since found out that the $30,000 was invested so well that it will take care of Emily’s and Karen’s children, too.

  To meet them and to learn how they’re leading their lives, that was their gift to me.

  I play golf for a living, but I don’t see it as what my life is really about. I think my life is really about people. I’m not a real religious person. My relationship with God is personal. But I think I was put here on earth for a purpose, and that purpose has to do with helping people. Everybody’s always asking me, how come people love you so much? Is it because you hit a golf ball a long way? I don’t think so. Maybe at first, but shit, there are a lot of guys out there now who hit the ball just as far as I do. I think people love me because they know—they feel—that I love them.

  And I do.

  People do things that make them feel good. When I high-five people walking from green to tee, it means as much to me as it does to them. When I give a golf ball to a kid, it makes me feel good to see his eyes light up. I love people. When I came out of a casino in Australia once after losing a bundle and gave a homeless guy on the street a thousand dollars, it was because he was broke and hungry—it felt right because he was a hell of a lot worse off than I was.

  People love me. I don’t know why for sure, but I think it’s because they trust my feelings for them.

  Last year, at the WGC AmEx in San Francisco, after I lost the playoff to Tiger Woods, I came off the green and gave my putter to this Japanese guy. He went nuts. He couldn’t believe it. It was just a putter that I’d missed a 3-footer with to lose a playoff. It cost me a two-year exemption, a place in the Mercedes Championships, an extra $550,000, and another 10 spots in the World Rankings. I didn’t want that putter. To hell with that putter.

  But I could have broken it over my knee or thrown it in the lake or sold it on eBay or just stuck the damned thing back in my bag. (After all, the putter didn’t three-putt on the first playoff hole—I did.)

  Instead, I gave it to somebody and made him feel good, something I’ve loved doing all my life.

  My point is that it’s a two-way street: I give people stuff and it makes them feel good—but it makes me feel good, too.

  Last year the PGA Tour raised $32,201,000 for charity. I’m not 100 percent sure, but I believe that’s more than the NFL, the NBA, Major League Baseball, and the NHL raised combined.

  The reason we’re able to raise more than any of the other pro sports is that we’re able to employ the golf pro-am as a fund-raising tool, and they can’t. (Can you imagine the Pittsburgh Steelers running a pro-am? The medical bills for the “am’s” would cost more than the event raised.)

  But beyond the pro-ams at the official PGA Tour events, there’s a bunch of tournaments run by individual golfers that raise another ton of money for charities. (That’s true of football, basketball, and baseball players, too.) I’m just guessing that a third, maybe half of the guys on the PGA Tour run charity events every year. The percentage may be even higher on the Champions Tour. Some are small, local affairs. A few are big deals, with national TV contracts.

  PGA Tour members are required to play in the Wednesday pro-ams at officially sanctioned tournaments. To play on Thursday, you have to play on Wednesday—that’s our deal with tournament sponsors: they put up those huge purses; we play in the pro-ams.

  The “official” pro-ams, to tell you the truth, don’t hold a candle to the individual events we run when it comes to fun. And at the larger individual ones, there’s another consideration: the pros play for nice purses.

  Now let’s take a look at my two favorite tournaments in the entire world: the Boys & Girls Clubs Tournament in Dardanelle, Arkansas, and the Lion’s Heart Invitational, in Tunica, Mississippi.

  My mother started the Boys & Girls Clubs event in 1994. Over the years, it’s evolved into the best damned party in Yell County, if I do say so myself. And it raises about $60,000 a year for the Boys & Girls Clubs in the area.

  The golf part of it is a two-day scramble on Saturday and Sunday with about a hundred teams that pay $100 to play. That’s $100 per team, not per golfer. From the git-go, we wanted the tournament to be accessible to local people who like to play golf and want to help the Boys & Girls Clubs, but who don’t have the means to pay $5,000 to $10,000 per team, like they charge at bigger, fancier events. We also raise money through sponsorships.

  But the best part is the big party we throw. Over the years we’ve had it in big tents at my parents’ place and at Chamberlyne Country Club in Danville, where we’ve usually held the golf tournament. This past spring it was at the Lion’s Den Golf Club, formerly the Bay Ridge Golf Club, the same course I practically grew up on.

  What makes it so great is that a bunch of my music friends come to the party and perform: Johnny Lee, Hootie & the Blowfish, Moe Bandy, and Billy Pierson. In recent years, a certain professional golfer who fancies himself a picker and singer has got up on the stage with them and tried not to make too big an ass out of himself.

  Plenty of beer, plenty of good country food, plenty of great music, plenty of dancing, plenty of golf—how can you not have a good time?

  The other tournament that will always be on my playing schedule is the Lion’s Heart Invitational in Tunica, which succeeds the John Daly Make-A-Wish Foundation Tournament I hosted in Memphis. Over a dozen years, the Make-A-Wish raised about $4 to $5 million. A huge
tip of my cowboy hat for helping make that successful goes to folks like Vince Gill, Johnny Lee, Hootie & the Blowfish, Amy Grant, Joe Walsh, Glenn Frey, and Mickey Gilley.

  The greatest personal benefit I derived over the years from my association with the Make-A-Wish Foundation in Memphis can be summed up in two words: Lori Laird.

  When I first met her, back in 1994 at the first Make-A-Wish Foundation event I got involved in, she was Lori Reed, she was 16, and she wasn’t supposed to live to see 17 because of cancer.

  Six months to live.

  That’s what Lori had to look forward to.

  Well, flash forward to 2006. Lori Reed is now Lori Laird, 27 going on 28, married, with two young girls, and living in Arkansas, where she runs her own business. Last November her doctors declared her cancer-free.

  Funny, she told Bob Verdi of Golf Digest that I taught her about how to “keep fighting when you’re down.” That’s nice to hear, but Lori has it all turned around. She’s the one who has inspired me. Lori’s the only living, breathing, bona fide miracle I’ve ever met.

  We still stay in touch. Whenever me and Sherrie and the kids are in the neighborhood, our boys play with her young girls. She is the most cheerful and positive human being I’ve ever met. She’s like, “Cancer? What cancer?”

  She’s a fighter, and a constant source of inspiration for anybody who’s lucky enough to see her smile.

  As I said, I’m not religious, and I don’t go to church, but I do believe God put me together with Lori. Every time I think my life sucks, every time I feel like just giving up, I think of Lori, and it helps set me straight. When I think of her, I get goose bumps.

  There’s a reason we met each other.

  There’s a reason we’re both still alive and kicking.

  And that reason is that God put me there for her, and God put her there for me.

  The first Lion’s Heart Invitational was held last October. Justin Timberlake headlined a show that helped raise $200,000. That money was distributed to various charities through the John Daly Foundation, which me and my wife created two years ago.

  The Lion’s Heart takes place at the Horseshoe Casino, and—like the Make-A-Wish always did—has a great group of musicians who contribute their talent to a killer party. Last year we also had a celebrity poker tournament as part of the event. (I lost some, of course, but that’s okay because it was for a helluva good cause.) We have 40 foursomes at $10,000 a team, plus a bunch of really generous sponsors.

  I also sponsor the Arkansas Alumni Tournament (Ooooo, Pig! Soooie!), help out at local charity events around my home, and support the charity tournaments run by friends of mine on the Tour.

  In the future, I plan on doing even more of this kind of stuff for one simple reason: I like it.

  My motto: If doing good makes you feel good, do more of it and feel even better.

  TEN

  “YOU DON’T KNOW ME”

  A lot of shit has been written about me over the past 15 years. And you know what? Most of it has been true. I’ve always got along with reporters and writers because I just tell them the truth and don’t try to bullshit my way through an interview. I think they respect that, and with a handful of exceptions, they’ve treated me fair.

  Take a guy like Bob Verdi of Golf Digest, for example. He’s written a lot of words about me over the years, and sometimes he’s come down on me pretty hard. But he’s always been fair, and he’s always given me a chance to tell my side of things, and he doesn’t twist things around to make himself look smart. A few reporters make the story about them, and about how smart they are. Not Bob. He tells it straight. Hard sometimes, but always straight.

  Other writers, like Tim Rosaforte and Rick Reilly and John Garrity and Doug Ferguson, who have covered me a lot of years, fall in that category as well: tough sometimes, but always fair. The same’s true of Larry Dorman, who used to write golf for the New York Times before going to work for the Callaway company.

  But what do you really know about me based on what you’ve read and heard all these years? I’m guessing it pretty much adds up to something like this: I hit the ball a long way, eat hamburgers, smoke too much, gamble way too much, used to drink a lot of Jack Daniels, get married and divorced a lot, love music, and live in a bus on the road.

  Fine. That’s more or less true. But if that’s all you know, then like the title of a song I wrote the lyrics for, “You Don’t Know Me.”

  You might get to know me a little better if we could sit down for a little Q&A. So let’s do it. I’ll do the Q—and I’ll also do the A. (And if you’ve got your own Q for me, fire it off to johndaly.com and I’ll make sure you get an A. Just keep it clean!)

  Are You Still Drinking?

  That’s a one-part question, but let me give you a two-part answer.

  1. If I was still drinking whiskey, I wouldn’t be drinking anything right now. I’d be dead. That’s the truth, and I know it.

  2. I drink beer. Miller Lite. Sometimes just a little. Sometimes more. And sometimes—not as much I used to, but sometimes—too much.

  The first time I came out of rehab, in 1993, I said I was never going to drink again. The second time I came out of rehab, in 1997, I said I would never say I was never going to drink again. Now, I just pray I never drink whiskey again, because if I do, I know it’ll kill me.

  But What About Your Old Friend, Jack Daniels?

  Most people would be drunk for two weeks on the amount of JD I used to have before dinner. Nowadays, I don’t even like the smell of whiskey. I used to drink to get drunk. High school, college, my first years on the Tour, I’d soak my problems in Jack Daniels. Not anymore.

  Do You Do Drugs? Did You Ever Do Drugs?

  You can’t play professional golf with your brain scrambled on drugs. It just can’t be done. So my answer to your first question is no, absolutely not, I do not do drugs.

  Now, have I ever done drugs? Sure, in college, I smoked a little grass. Who didn’t? But I never liked it. All grass did for me was make me want to eat about 25 Big Macs and go to bed. And it made me thirsty. As I told Bob Verdi last summer in Golf Digest, if grass makes me want to have a beer, why not just forget the grass and have the beer?

  I don’t need any extra incentive to have a beer.

  Are You Ever Going to Stop Smoking?

  Hey, I gave up whiskey, remember? You can’t go expecting me to give up cigarettes, too.

  What Do You Do to Stay Fit?

  That’s a trick question, right? Look, people are always saying how great they feel after a workout. Not me. Every time I get on a bike or a treadmill, I go puke afterwards. I try not to get within a pitching wedge of the fitness trailer they bring to tournaments. And I’m sure as hell not going to some fucking health club, because they won’t let you smoke.

  Last year, a bunch of us were sitting in the clubhouse after practicing, having a beer and shooting the shit, when Tiger comes through in his workout gear, on the way to the gym. I say to him, “Hey, man, don’t you ever get tired of that workout shit? Why don’t you just come over and have a few beers with us and hang out?” He goes, “If I had your talent, John, I wouldn’t have to work out.”

  The way I see it is that I walk 5 miles a day, four days a week, assuming I make the cut. If that’s not enough to keep me fit, then I’d better start looking for another line of work.

  Why Do You Talk About Sex All the Time?

  Probably because I’m thinking about sex all the time. I want to have sex two or three times a day with my wife, Sherrie. I love her. I love her body. I love her attitude. I love everything about her.

  I think sex helps my golf. I swear it does. At the BMW in Germany in 2001, me and Sherrie were making love like crazy, and I won. At the 2004 Buick Invitational in San Diego, same thing, on my bus, and I won. At the WGC AmEx in San Francisco in 2005, we had sex all week, and I would have won if I could have putted worth a shit.

  So whenever you see John Daly playing great golf, you know his wife’s taking
care of his needs. And when you see John Daly playing bad golf…

  Look, if you think about sex as much as I do, it can get tough out there in a golf tournament. You got good-looking women all over the place. Some of them take off their underpants and sit around the greens and flash you when you come up to putt. Women are always coming up to you in the parking lot and asking you to sign their boobs.

  I used to do that a lot, hundreds of times over the years, but after that thing with Tiffany on the Internet, I don’t sign tits anymore.

  Who’s Tiffany? What Thing with Tiffany on the Internet?

  You don’t know what I’m talking about? Hell, you must not have a computer. Seriously, it was all over the Internet a year or so ago. I figured everybody’d seen it by now.

  Tiffany is a stripper from Canada who posted pictures of me and her on the Internet. We were both topless, and we were drinking and having fun at a party. I sued her for going public with the photos after promising before a bunch of witnesses that she wouldn’t, and I won a $600,000 judgment.

  What happened was this nice old guy—somebody told me he does septic tanks and sewers all over Canada—threw this big party at the Bell Canadian a couple of years ago. Nothing out of the ordinary, just a lot of women and booze and dancing. But then a girl came up behind me and grabbed my nuts, and she had her top off, and somebody took a picture. I said, “Whoa! What the hell is this? You’re not using this for anything, are you?” “No, no, no,” she said. “We’re just having fun.” There were women all over the place, partying like crazy. So I just kept taking pictures with this woman, who told me her name was Tiffany.

  Then, about a year later, those pictures of me and Tiffany came out on the Internet. Sherrie went ballistic. She was absolutely convinced I’d cheated on her. I did moon the crowd one time (my big Arkansas ass is in one picture). I did sign Tiffany’s boobs. And all this shit goes out over the Internet. But there was never any sex. To this day, Sherrie thinks there was an orgy going on there, but if there was, no one invited me.